lol, they better be working on more than just a "few" games right now, if Mario Kart, a 3D Mario, Animal Crossing, and Smash Brothers aren't in development right now for Switch 2, Nintendo has probably already fucked themselves over in a lot of ways. Really you got to be 4 years ahead of your product release schedule if you're managing a modern game company. 

New systems are always risky, but there's no excuses in this business. No one feels sorry for you if you can't execute. You can't let the fear of that take over your company. 

Be smart, be aggressive, have your software development teams ready to go and you can do fine. 

Switch 2 is probably fairly imminent. Nintendo's job listings are even now mentioning a next generation Nintendo platform

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2023/04/nintendo-subsidiary-hiring-engineer-for-current-and-next-generation-platforms, we have the Pokemon leaker who accurately leaked details on a Pokemon Direct saying a new Switch successor console is coming next year, we have Nvidia leaks that show the Tegra T239/Drake not only exists (this is a chip a reliable Nvidia leaker stated would be for the next-gen Switch) but in data leak you can see this chip uses the graphics API listed as "NVN2" ... the only Nvidia product that uses NVN as a graphics API designation is the Switch ... so take a wild guess what NVN2 means. 

The other thing with this record stuff to me is it's sorta illegitimate if you need all these weird quirks to hit these hardware targets (like a massively longer product cycle and radio silence on any successor). If you can't hit the record in a normal 7-8 year product cycle it really isn't as impressive at all IMO. It would be like if they kept re-releasing Avatar 2 in theaters until it hit the no.1 all-time box office record ... I mean fine you did it, but if you needed like multiple releases to artificially heighten it, then to me it's a bit phony. 

Do it in a regular product cycle, Sony could probably hit 150+ million PS4s too if they really were hell bent on doing only that and just delayed PS5 and let it sell indefinitely but that's sort of bullshit in my books too. 

The DS was at 151 million on it's 7th birthday quarter (Q3 2004-Q3 end 2011) with the successor 3DS not only announced but released ... that's way better than the Switch or PS2, IMO that's the legitimate all-time sales champ, if you need like an extra 2-3 years to match/exceed that to me it's bullshit. If Nintendo really wanted arbitrary numbers, they easily could have force fed the DS (to the detriment of the 3DS) to 175 million really and no one would have a prayer of reaching that ever. 

You seem to miss the point in the GB example as the Switch is exactly like that case because they have the leverage of a near monopoly, the whole portable side of he industry is under their control right now so they can afford to wait longer than expected even if sales decline because that whole market only really has one realistic place to go for their fill this is one reason Switch sales have been higher than expected because the are two markets on the platform. Modern chipsets and so on being more focused to implement doesn't impact this as much as it would other platform holders because unlike them the is no Xbox or PS equivalent competitor to force a move on meaning they already have the leverage to see good success even if the next platform doesn't do Switch numbers, their situation essentially has the added advantage of more time than usual and it would not be unlikely for them to have been cycling through modern tech in R&D throughout the past months with the goal of targeting a 2025 release.

Well first of all your Game Boy example is not even historically accurate, Nintendo was fed up with the Game Boy by about 1995 and was desperately trying to replace it, this is how the Virtual Boy got released in the first place, like it wasn't some random thing that Nintendo pulled out of their ass and just decided to release for no reason. Nintendo wanted some secondary product to sell alongside their consoles since the GB had flagging sales Yamauchi insisted Yokoi give him something new to sell and that's how the Virtual Boy was rushed out to market. 

There was a Game Boy successor already in development circa 1994 that they were planning to release in 1995/96 too (Codename Atlantis, which Nintendo finally showed proof of at GDC like 20 years later) but they couldn't release it because of hardware problems too, so they were actively trying to basically kill the OG Game Boy by '95 it was really just happenstance that they couldn't do it as the company making the chipset for Atlantis (Game Boy successor) fucked up. 

Secondly though you're operating under an assumption that Nintendo hasn't made chip deals ... the deal is already made likely has been for years. Shit the chip itself for the Switch successor we already know what it is (Tegra T239/Drake). 

Nintendo doesn't have the flexibility to just back out of this deal, this chip is probably made primarily for them because the Tegra line doesn't really have many vendors that use that tech (it's just too power hungry for smartphones and Android tablet makers don't want a chip that powerful because the only Android tablets that really sell are the dirt cheap ones otherwise people just buy an iPad and keep it for 10 years). 

So the bill on this chip is going to be due, one way or another and it's likely a very hefty bill as this type of tech is not cheap. 

The Game Boy was a completely different hardware story, it used generic off the shelf parts that weren't designed really for the Game Boy in particular. Nintendo can't do that with the Switch, they're stuck with Nvidia now (for better or worse) because of backwards compatibility issues. 

Not true as VB was never meant to replace the GB it was in fact in development from as early as the late 80s as Nintendo got the tech back in 85 and it was in R&D alongside the GB not to mention the VB is not a portable platform it's a table top console, the VB was meant to create a new market much like we have home console and portable the VB was meant to create a new branch. Secondly 95/96 would be seven to eight years for the GB just like how now is seven years for the Switch so yes the GB example stands pretty much as I put it as the monopoly allowed them the luxury of taking their time and even the GB further pushes my point because they could afford to have development hiccups and still be fine.

Deals have a wide range of ways they can be done you're the one assuming here as you're assuming things can be done only in one way for example how a bank deals with giving an ordinary person a loan is different from how they deal with giving a loan to a billionaire the are flexibilities, you also miss the point in the having leverage with the market which gives them more clout in negotiating deals which can allows the space to exercise options in tech not to mention some deals aren't closed straight away and have periods where things are left open until a certain deadline. Any company negotiating with them would be well aware at this point that the Switch successor has a potential 100m sales which gives the client Nintendo more ground in negotiations which dictate what kind of deal is agreed.

It was

It was not. It was meant to be portable, and was running on batteries.

Being $200 more expensive and having a very complex architecture to develop games were one of the major disadvantage factors the PS3 when it launched a year later than the 360, had the PS3 released at the same price as the 360 and with similar architecture, maybe another different story would have been.

PS4 and PS5 generations showed different results 

Atlantis was meant to replace the GB not the VB otherwise you're saying Nintendo was going to release two separate replacements in 1995/96 which makes no sense, VB was always its own thing a table top console it was previewed in 1994 which as time scale goes the Atlantis was still in development with a 1995/96 release date this flat out says VB wasn't intended to replace the GB it was intended to release alongside the GB successor.

Table top =/= portable platform like the GB it's like calling a laptop a portable in the same vain as the Switch the similarities are vague at best, portables like GB and such can be played anywhere while table top like VB still require a suitable stationary set up for example try playing a VB on a bus and such the execution of the applications have significant variation.

Yeah and the DS was meant to be the third pillar, not a replacement for the (still young) GBA

PS2 was more expensive than the DC and also the GC (it was £180 more than it here in the UK) and had no issue there as well as being trickier to code for, the reason PS3 had issues was that the competition that gen was far more competent and able to capitalize on their advantages thus the head start played into that, MS was able to gain ground. PS5 showed different results yet the result is much less one sided than before as look how much closer the gap is compared to PS4's run.

And? Atlantis and VB were a thing at the same time due to release the same year which highlights the point the VB was not the GB's replacement nor was ever intended to do so and never did which makes the DS comment quite irrelevant tbh.